CHAPTER 1437: STORY 1437: THE SPIRAL BELOW

Mira didn’t fall fast.

The fountain’s collapse pulled her as if through syrup, the air thick and dragging at her limbs. Elena’s scream was distant, warped, as though coming from the far end of a long tunnel.

The spiral beneath her wasn’t just darkness—it was moving. The black walls churned like an inverted whirlpool, veins of faint red light pulsing in rhythm with her heartbeat. And that voice—no longer inside her head, but all around her—spoke with unhurried certainty.

Down is the way. Down is the door.

Mira’s boots touched a surface that looked solid but yielded like damp clay. She staggered upright, the cold in her ankle now radiating into her chest. The air here was warm, metallic, and each breath coated her tongue with a taste like old coins.

Above, the circular opening to the courtyard was still there—but shrinking, closing like an iris. She saw Elena’s silhouette leaning over the edge, blade in hand, shouting words that the place around her refused to let through.

The ground trembled. Shapes unfolded from the walls—pale, jointless limbs peeling away from the black spiral, bending without angles. They didn’t rush her. They stretched, almost lazily, touching the ground with too-long fingers that left trails of ash where they grazed.

Mira backed away, eyes scanning for an escape, but the spiral wasn’t a pit. It was a path. The walls twisted away ahead of her, forming a downward corridor that bent out of sight.

She felt it again—that locking in her muscles, the invisible tether pulling her in the direction the spiral wanted. Her ankle throbbed, each beat sending a small puff of grey smoke from the seams of her boot.

A figure emerged at the curve ahead. Not the root-faced thing. This one wore the tatters of human clothing—a shredded coat, a necklace of brass keys—but its head had split into three petal-like flaps, each lined with tiny grinding teeth. Inside that gaping bloom, something faintly glowed.

It lifted a hand, and the voice returned, clearer than ever.

You are the hinge. We are the turning.

Mira’s knees buckled. The world swam again—not into the bone-and-root place, but into memories she’d never lived. She saw streets she didn’t know, covered in still bodies, and above them hung towers of pulsing red vines. She saw the bridge from before, but empty, the spindly creature curled beneath it like a sleeping animal.

Then she saw herself—standing at a gate of bone, pushing it open.

“Mira!” Elena’s voice cut through the visions, raw and furious.

The figure with the blooming head flinched. In that hesitation, Mira forced her body to turn toward the shrinking hole above. Elena had dropped into the spiral, landing in a crouch, knife glinting.

“Run,” Elena snapped.

The spiral corridor ahead seemed to breathe. The limbs along the walls shifted closer.

And somewhere deeper, something large began to climb upward.